The Great Artiste was a U.S. Army Air Forces Silverplate B-29 bomber (B-29-40-MO 44-27353, Victor number 89), assigned to the 393d Bomb Squadron, 509th Composite Group.

[4] Flown by 393d commander, Major Charles W. Sweeney, it was assigned to the Hiroshima mission on 6 August 1945, as the blast measurement instrumentation aircraft.

To avoid delaying the mission, Sweeney traded airplanes with the crew of Bockscar to carry the Fat Man atomic bomb to Nagasaki.

[6] Enola Gay, flown by Captain George Marquardt's Crew B-10, was the weather reconnaissance aircraft for Kokura, the primary target on the Nagasaki flight.

[7] In November 1945 it returned with the 509th Composite Group to Roswell Army Air Field, New Mexico, where it remained for the rest of its flying career, except for a brief period when it was assigned to Task Force 1.5 for Operation Crossroads nuclear tests at Bikini Atoll in July 1946.

[8][1] On 3 September 1948, during a polar navigation training mission, it developed an engine problem after takeoff from Goose Bay Air Base, Labrador, and ran off the end of the runway when attempting to land.